Quotes by Jean Cocteau

“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”

“Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.”

“An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.”

“When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.”

“There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them.”

“Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.”

“Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.”

“Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.”

“Youve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.”

“The poet doesnt invent. He listens.”

“Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.”

“Style is a simple way of saying complicated things”

“The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.”

“Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.”

“Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents; what we need is music of the earth, everyday music...music one can live in like a house.”

“The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.”

“He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world.”

“Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself”

“A film is a petrified fountain of thought.”

“Life is a horizontal fall.”